The top aide to a congresswoman in her California district sits in jail awaiting sentencing for the drunk-driving hit-and-run death of a 27-year-old woman whose parents are now suing the lawmaker, blaming her for failing to vet the staffer – who had two DUIs in 2006 and 2007, and a 2010 grand theft conviction – before she hired him.

Their daughter's killer, they say, was officially on the job the night of December 6, gladhanding in Rep. Lois Capps' stead at a private holiday party thrown by a local newspaper.

Capps, a 76-year-old Democrat, is named along with the U.S. government in a wrongful death federal lawsuit filed near her Santa Barbara district.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO AND THE LAWSUIT FILING

Raymond Morua (R) was Rep. Lois Capps' link to the 42 per cent of her California constituents who are Hispanic, and he did it with a Captain America shield and a military bravado that made him as much of a celebrity as his boss -- until he caused the death of a 27-year-old woman

Morua got drunk the night of Dec. 5 and drove his car into Mallory Dies as she made her way through a crosswalk; her severe brain injuries killed her after several days in a hospital

Guilty plea: Raymond Morua will spend at least 12 years behind bars, and Rep. Capps' office is eager to put distance between her and the man who was once her most visible connection to her constituents

Her
spokesman insists that their former employee was at the booze-fueled
bash on his own when he bought eight cocktails and got behind the wheel.

But
Raymond Victor Morua III, the once-promising Iraq war veteran who was
Capps' public face whenever she was three time zones away in Washington,
D.C., wrote in a sworn statement that the congresswoman's scheduler
instructed him to attend the party.

'On or about November 27th, 2013, I was in Representative Capps' office and was told by Vianey Lopez that I was to attend a Christmas party on Dec. 5, 2013, at The Savoy, a club on State Street in Santa Barbara,' he wrote.

He had reportedly attended the same event a year earlier as Capps' emmisary.

Now Morua, denied bail, faces a possible 20-year prison term when he's sentenced on May 28.

He has pleaded guilty to gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and fleeing the scene of the crime, a deal that spares him a second-degree murder charge. He also acknowledged, for the record, his past drunk-driving convictions.

The story has burned through California's political landscape since Investigative journalist Peter Lance published a lengthy exposé in which he details an alleged cover-up on the part of Capps staffers, aimed at sparing their boss the embarrassment of having hired and publicly praised Morua.

Darryl Genis, Morua's attorney, told reporters after a December arraignment hearing that his client 'is just deeply sorry for what he did and he wants to acknowledge responsibility and regrets the pain he's caused to the community.'

The Santa Barbara County Jail inmate's popular image, one of a hulking Hispanic superhero who carried – literally – a Captain America shield to public appearances, is gone forever.

Morua, 32, hit her at a reported 40 miles per hour as she crossed the street inside a marked crosswalk. She suffered broken bones and a severe head injury that later claimed her life.

Her parents want a civil judgement to pay for their daughter's extensive medical and burial costs, and to fund a grass-roots organization – called VOW4MAL – aimed at stigmatizing drunk driving among young people.

'We want to make drinking and driving about as popular as being a racist,' Matt Dies told MailOnline. 'We want young people to mock their friends for doing what Mr. Morua did to our daughter.'

Crucial: Text messages Morua (L, at party) sent to his girlfriend on the night he killed Mallory Dies said he was 'talking business' at the party where he got drunk before driving -- a piece of evidence the Dies family says proves he was attending the event as a congressional employee

On that fateful night, Morua bought 8 cocktails, plowed into Dies, crashed his car and registered a 0.17 per cent BAC, more than twice the legal limit for driving. Journalist Peter Lance reports that Morua downed six of those drinks, plus two more at dinner before this bar tab was opened -- in a total stretch of 4 hours

An hour and 45 minutes into his open bar tab, Morua was photographed with Erin Weber, a former California scheduler for Capps. Her successor, he insists, gave him Capps' invitation to the Dec. 5 holiday party

Capps' staffers appear to have engaged in two different kinds of damage control, according to Lance's groundbreaking five-part series published by the Santa Barbara News-Press.

He found documents suggesting that while Dies was on life support at a southern California hospital, Capps political director Mollie Culver forged Morua's signature on Veterans Administration medical authorization forms in an attempt to get him removed from jail and placed in an alcohol treatment program for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.

'Lois Capps' office used all the political power and back-door machinations that they could to save her politically by helping Raymond while Mallory was alive,' Dies family attorney Robert Stoll told Lance.

'But then they cut him loose once she passed away.'

The congresswoman's office has kept the former top aide at arms' length since Dec 11, when his victim died, insisting that he had been fired days before.

Culver, at one time the California Democratic Party's chief political strategist, is best known in the Golden State for helming the successful 2013 Los Angeles mayoral campaign of Eric Garcetti.

As proof that Morua did not attend the Dec. 5 party as a congressional staff, Culver told Santa Barbara Police that he hadn't submitted an expense report for his vehicle mileage that night – a move he couldn't have made from jail.

She suggested, police wrote in their report, that Morua 'must have taken it upon himself' to steal an invitation – addressed to Rep. Capps – to the Dec. 5 event hosted by the Santa Barbara Independent newspaper, 'and later used it to gain access into the party.'

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Chris Meagher, Capps' press secretary, once worked for the Independent. He's closing ranks along with the rest of the congresswoman's closest aides, refusing to comment on the lawsuit but offering talking points in his boss's defense.

'Raymond Morua was not representing the congresswoman at the Independent party,' he told MailOnline, adding that 'he was there on his own time and of his own volition.'

'Our office did not know of his past convictions' before he was hired, added Meagher.

Those included the two previous drunk-driving raps, an unrelated hit-and-run conviction, driving without a license, and grand theft by embezzlement – in a case where he illegally used coupons to get free merchandise from a Kmart store for himself and his friends.

'Our
office's hiring practices of interviews and reference checks were in
line with standard House procedures,' Meagher claimed, but said Rep.
Capps has now 'decided to implement stronger requirements and worked
with U.S. Capitol Police to conduct criminal background checks on every
employee currently working for her.'

But
Morua, whose driver's license was still suspended when Capps brought
him on board in June 2011 as an intern, was never vetted. Months later,
she put him on the government's payroll in a job that required him to
criss-cross her district nearly every day.

'To
hire somebody in a position like that without doing some kind of a
criminal background check? Are you kidding me?' asked Mr. Dies during a
phone interview.

DESTROYED: Matt Dies, Mallory's father, told MailOnline that Rep. Capps has no excuse for failing to perform criminal background checks on prospective hires, like the check his son had to agree to before he could work at WalMart

If Attorney Robert Stoll can prove Morua was acting in his capacity as a congressional aide -- conducting government business -- when he struck and killed Mallory Dies, Lois Capps and the U.S. Congress will be liable for wrongful death damages

Capps' official party functions were often alcohol-fueled events; prior to her 2013 Halloween bash, political director Mollie Culver apparently asked Morua for a booze shopping list, including one concoction he said he had tried 'in Amsterdam at a live porno show'

A drunk Raymond Morua crashed his Dodge Caliber into a palm tree after fleeing the scene of his collision with Mallory Dies and hiding out briefly in a freight yard

Morua has pleaded guilty to DUI, manslaughter and fleeing the scene of a fatal collision, and expects to be sentenced next month to as many as 20 years in prison

In his business as a home loan originator, he said, he had run criminal background checks on several prospective employees.

'It costs me about $35 to do. Probably wouldn't cost her anything since she's in Congress.'

'She should have known,' Mr. Dies said. 'Absolutely. When my son worked at WalMart, pushing carts, he had to go through a criminal background check.'

The grieving father also insisted that 'all the evidence is on our side' in the wrongful death lawsuit that now faces Capps and the federal government.

He cited a 'string of emails' and 'the back and forth with people at Capps' office while he was at that function.'

'This was a district rep working the room on behalf of the congresswoman. I mean, that was his job, his function – to be out in the community representing her.'

Those emails and messages do seem to indicate that Morua was doing more than socializing on the night he killed Mallory Dies.

In one text message he sent his girlfriend nearly two hours after he opened his bar tab, Morua wrote, 'I am talking business, talk to you when I get ... home.'

In other messages, he chatted with his supervisor Culver during a meeting he held with a military veteran constituent at a cigar bar in the minutes between his departure from the party and his attempt to drive home.

Stoll, the family attorney, told Lance – the muckraker who put the Morua case on the map – that 'talk about him not being authorized to attend the party ... is a fiction designed to shield [Capps] from her responsibility for this.'

'It’s simple,' he said. 'If Morua wasn’t her lead man on veterans issues, he wouldn’t have been at the party that night and if he’d stayed home and not consumed seven or eight drinks, Mallory Rae Dies would still be alive.'

Ultimately Morua got into his red Dodge Caliber and ran down the young woman before fleeing, speeding through several stop signs, and trying to hide, his headlights darkened, in a nearby freight yard.

A good Samaritan followed him, however, and alerted police. When Morua spotted his pursuer, he bolted again and crashed into a palm tree minutes later. Police recorded his blood-alcohol level as 0.17 mg per deciliter. California's legal limit for driving is 0.08.

Mollie Culver (R, wearing black), accused of participating in a post-DUI coverup, previously directed the political operation for new Los Angeles Democratic Mayor Eric Garcetti when he ran successfully in 2013

A tale of two signatures: Mollie Culver allegedly forged Morua's signature in December (top), in a frenzied attempt -- before Mallory Dies was taken off life support -- to move him out of jail and into a Veterans Administration alcohol treatment program. His actual signature (bottom), appearing on a VA medical release completed later, is markedly different

When Mollie Culver filled out a Veterans Administration form for Morua and signed his name, she listed her own home address and phone number as his contact information 'via Mollie' -- a number that matched the one distributed by Eric Garcetti's mayoral campaign

Morua (L) was booked into jail shortly after midnight Dec. 6, a few hours after he fled the scene of his DUI collision. Dies (R) was a UC Santa Barbara graduate; her family donated her organs to needy patients

The House of Representatives' Office of General Counsel is handling the Dies family's lawsuit on behalf of Capps and the federal government. If a court finds that Morua was, in fact, on the job the night he became a killer, the damages could mount into the millions.

Stoll, the family attorney, told KEYT-TV3 that Mallory's hospital bills before her life support was discontinued 'are hundreds of thousands of dollars.'

The Dieses, he said, have 'lost their daughter and they've lost their financial security.'

Morua is also named in the lawsuit as a defendant, but he lacks the resources to pay a private attorney and won't likely have any assets to seize.

The bulk of the legal action consists of accusations that Capps knew Morua was an unsafe driver, and that he 'was consuming drugs and alcohol while in the course and scope of his employment.'

She, Morua and the federal government 'acted with malice in that they engaged in despicable conduct in conscious disregard of the rights, safety, and welfare of decedent Mallory Dies' and others, the suit alleges.

KEYT cornered Capps at a farmers market and asked her whether she bore any responsibility.

'I have no comment, no knowledge, no comment' she replied.

'This is a tragedy. All the way around and every sense of the word and my heart breaks. My heart goes out to the family of the victim. ... This is all now a legal matter and I really can't comment any further.'

Ironically, Capps and her late husband Walter first gained political prominence as the result of a head-on DUI collision that put him in the hospital. He rode a wave of public sympathy into Congress in 1996, winning a rematch of a 1994 race he had lost amid a newt Gingrich-fueled Republican sweep.

Nine months later Mr. Capps was dead from a heart attack; His widow Lois won the special election to replace him.

Since then, The Daily Caller reported in December, Capps has been 'soft on drunk drivers.'

In 2002 she voted against a bill permitting border patrol and immigration officials to test drivers at U.S. borders if they appeared to be driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.

And in 2012 Capps reportedly advocated on behalf of Cindy Reyna, an illegal immigrant convicted on a DUI charge, helping her remain in the U.S. so she could continue attending UC Santa Barbara – the same school where Mallory Dies graduated a few years earlier.

Mary Beth Walker, a 30-something lawyer in the Office of General Counsel, told Santa Barbara Police in January that 'her office refuses to turn over the suspect's work records and that she doesn't desire anyone from Representative Lois Capps' office to answer any further law enforcement inquiries,' according to a police report.

After paying for medical and burial expenses, the Dies family wants to use financial awards from their wrongful death lawsuit to fund VOW4MAL, a grassroots anti-drunk-driving charity in Santa Barbara they've already started in honor of their daughter

Democratic Rep. Lois Capps, 76, represents California's 24th congressional district in the House of Representatives, and has served in Congress since 1998

'You have to hug your daughters and tell them you love them every day,' Matt Dies told MailOnline of his late daughter Mallory. 'Every day. As a dad who lost his girl, I can tell you it's the most important thing in the world.'

Walker also
demanded copies of documents seized in a court-approved search of
Capps' Santa Barbara office, and asked for the return of Morua's iPhone,
which Capps had issued him.

Police refused, saying they needed the original phone as evidence.

Walker did not respond to a phone message seeking comment.

The Santa Barbara County Sheriff's office declined to make Morua available for a telephone interview.

Mr. Dies told MailOnline that answering his phone the night of Dec. 5, and learning that his daughter was clinging to life, was 'the thing that you dread your whole life, and it happened.'

He questioned Capps' hiring of the serial criminal Morua, saying that 'in a county that's 42 per cent Hispanic, a handsome, well-spoken, handsome war veteran fills a lot of political slots.'

But he's now focused on VOW4MAL, the organization that he says will help Santa Barbarans find safe rides home after nights out bar-hopping.

The group, he said, will even take hung-over partiers back to their cars a day later.

'People say the biggest problem is, "I need my car in the morning",' he told MailOnline. 'So, okay. What time do you need a ride back to your car? We'll take care of it.'

It's his way of honoring Mallory, the vivacious daughter who made friends easily and was once the apple of his eye.

'You have to hug your daughters and tell them you love them every day. Every day,' he said, nearing the point of tears.

'As a dad who lost his girl, I can tell you it's the most important thing in the world.'